This invention relates to the quilting of differently printed or otherwise differently prepared materials, and particularly to coordinating different quilting, panel cutting and cropping operations with the differently prepared materials introduced in a series into a quilting station and accommodating shrinkage of panel dimensions due to the quilting.
Quilted panels used in the manufacture of comforters and mattress covers are typically decorated with patterns applied to a facing layer of a textile material, either by printing or by weaving or other processes in the textile manufacture. In many cases, some coordination is desired between the selection of a quilted pattern and the pattern that is printed or otherwise formed on the facing layer. Further, the patterns may be such that registration is desirable between the quilted and printed patterns.
The related patents and publications identified above, by the assignee of the inventors hereof, teach the combining of printing and quilting, the registration of quilted patterns with patterns otherwise applied to the quilted material, and the batching of different products formed of different combinations of coordinated patterns in the course of quilt manufacturing.
Furthermore, other patents of the inventors"" assignee describe considerations and problems associated with quilting, such as the need to accommodate shrinkage or the gathering of material that occurs when compressible layers of fabric are sewn into quilts. Such problems include the control and coordination of the length of material fed from a web into the quilter with the cutter that severs the quilted panels from the web. Such patents include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,154,130, 5,544,599 and 6,237,517, all hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein. These patents also refer to what are referred to herein as xe2x80x9cbatchxe2x80x9d processes, in which quilting machines are controlled in such a way as to produce single or multiple panel batches of differing quilted products along a web of multi-layered material or on a continuously operating quilting line. A system for scheduling the manufacture of such products is further described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,105,520 of the assignee hereof, which is also expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The inventors"" assignee has also taught the printing of textile substrates of the type useful for making quilted mattress covers and comforters. Such methods include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,123 and U.S. patent application Publication Nos. 20010038408 and 2002005870, for example, which are hereby also expressly incorporated by reference herein. Such printing techniques are particularly useful in printing a variety of different patterns and information onto material for use in forming the quilted products referred to above.
When printing and quilting is to be combined and where economical commercial production of quilted and printed products is to be carried out, the problems that arise in each of the subsystems combine to produce new problems that are not addressed by solutions that focus on the problems of each subsystem alone. Among these problems are those that the shrinkage and cropping issues add to quilting-printing pattern coordination and to pattern registration.
A primary objective of the present invention is to provide for economical commercial production of quilted and printed products. A further objective of the invention is to efficiently solve problems that arise in combining scheduling, printing, quilting and cutting operations in the production of quilts. A particular objective of the invention is to solve problems that arise due to shrinkage of material during quilting and the need for cropping between quilting panels in performing quilting-printing pattern coordination and pattern registration.
According to principles of the present invention, a machine readable file is prepared for use in operating a print line that produces a layer of material having a series of panels printed thereon for quilting. The print line produces the material for quilting with machine readable records placed thereon. A quilt line receives the material, reads information from the records, and quilts the panels in accordance with the information.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the printing line produces the material having the series of panels thereon, preferably in an order that is the opposite of that in which the panels are to be quilted. The material may be in web form and, after printing, would be upon a roll such that the material can be fed from the roll, last-printed panel first, into a quilter. The printer may be in part controlled by information read from the machine readable file, with other of the information from the machine readable file being printed or otherwise placed in the records on the material.
In accordance with other aspects of the invention, the machine readable file includes information on one or more of the following: the order in which panels are to be quilted; the amount of shrinkage that will occur to a panel during quilting; the amount of crop to be made between adjacent panels following quilting. Such information may be included in records placed on the material at the print line. Such information is then in a condition to be read by a sensor at a quilting station, which reads the information and controls a quilter to quilt in accordance with the information. Panels are then quilted in accordance with a schedule and in batches in a most efficient manner. A panel cutter is also controlled by information read from records on the material. Shrinkage is also compensated for and appropriate crops are made between panels.
The invention provides a quilt manufacturing system that eliminates errors by human operators. Throughput of the machine and overall productivity are enhanced by reducing the need to change one or more of the materials that are otherwise required to be changed when different products or product batches are produced in sequence. The increased machinery run-time that results increases the quantities of products that can be produced, while operator stress and fatigue levels are reduced. Further, shrinkage of the panels and crops between panels are handled accurately, even as these parameters differ from panel to panel.
These and other objectives and advantages of the present invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description of the drawings of the preferred embodiment of the invention, in which: